Browns brass vows to do better this time

Joe Banner and Jimmy Haslam play damage control as a new landscape emerges after the firing of Rob Chudzinski.

Steve Doerschuk CantonRep.com sports writer @sdoerschukREP

Joe Banner couldn’t believe the question that had just been asked in the post-bombshell briefing.

“I am not a stooge,” Banner said, seeming calm the day after the tidal wave that crashed in Pittsburgh washed the Browns back home without a head coach.

The Browns’ CEO smiled as he said so, shortly after the news conference in which he and owner Jimmy Haslam explained what happens now that Rob Chudzinski is gone.

A reporter had asked: “Can you assure the fans they don't have the Three Stooges running this organization?”

Banner said he has never heard that one in 20 years in the NFL. But then, no one has seen anything like the expansion-era Browns since the league was born in Canton in 1920.

It wasn’t just that Chudzinski was one of the rare NFL head coaches fired after one year. It is a rarity within a rarity, ex-Browns general manager Phil Savage said.“The times it has happened,” Savage said, “the coach who got fired had been hired by a previous regime.”

Savage could think of just one exception, Ray Rhodes, who got just one year in Green Bay (going 8-8) after replacing Mike Holmgren in 1999. Holmgren turned down an offer to be the head coach of the 1999 expansion Browns. What a coaching circus there has been ever since.

Savage was fired as general manager the day of the 2008 season finale at Pittsburgh; head coach Romeo Crennel was dumped the next day. Head coaches Eric Mangini and Pat Shurmur each got two years before they were fired. Chudzinski was out even before Sunday’s season finale at Pittsburgh ended his lone campaign at 4-12.

Banner said the decision was made Saturday. The leaks began squirting before Sunday’s kickoff. If they came from general manager Michael Lombardi, it was the only talking he did to the media.

Lombardi has not talked in public for months, and did not join Banner and Haslam on Monday.

Savage, the executive director of the Senior Bowl and a radio analyst for Alabama football, told WTAM he thinks the Browns “almost have a verbal agreement in place” with Chudzinski’s successor. Josh McDaniels and Bill O’Brien are the likeliest targets, he said.

Ex-Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar went on record saying Nick Saban would be a great “next coach,” a choice even Chudzinski could comprehend. Savage is convinced Saban is staying in Tuscaloosa.

Banner and Haslam were careful to avoid any perception of having picked their man.

Both were sensitive about being perceived as reckless operators of a flailing franchise that has gone 9-23 since Haslam agreed to buy it.

“The safer thing to do,” Banner said, “would have been to stick with the status quo. We didn’t think that would get us the wins we need as quickly.“Time will tell whether we’re right or not.”

Haslam said the Browns are willing to wait for a coach who is tied up in the playoffs but can’t be offered a job until his team is eliminated.It’s possible the Browns will line up interviews and leak names to create an appearance of an open search.

One name that surfaced Monday was Dan Quinn, defensive coordinator of the Seahawks. His candidacy seems far-fetched, but he is intriguing insofar as he was Urban Meyer’s defensive coordinator with the Florida Gators in 2011.

Meyer has long been considered NFL head coaching material. Former Browns owner Randy Lerner identified him a few years ago as a man to watch.

Will the Browns have trouble getting someone they want to say yes? The team is in one of the most dreadful stretches in pro sports history, having gone 5-11, 4-12, 6-10, 4-12, 10-6, 4-12, 5-11, 5-11, 4-12, 5-11 and 4-12 since reaching the playoffs in 2002.

“I think we have an outstanding story to tell about why a coach would want to come here,” Banner said.

He cited the current roster’s “talent” and “youth,” “an outstanding salary cap situation,” high and plentiful picks in the 2014 draft, and “an owner invested in winning football games.”

“Jimmy owns the team for no reason other than wanting to win football games,” Banner said.

Banner did more talking than Haslam, partly because he has more experience knowing what plays to a fan base.

For example, Haslam said at one point, as to how long it will take for the talent pool to be deep enough, “Do I think we can get there over the next couple or three years? Yes I do.”

Knowing fans are sick of long-term plans when other teams make quick turnarounds, Banner said one reason Chudzinski got fired was failing to inspire the kind of late-season improvements other first-year head coaches were making.Banner noted that three teams who drafted higher than the Browns in 2012 have reached the 2013 playoffs.

Haslam is not deaf to the fan uproar.

“Listen,” he said, “we deserve the skepticism.”

Meanwhile, Chudzinski doesn’t leave empty-handed. He was due a reported $10.5 million from the remainder of his contract.

Banner said the move was difficult but reflects a “do whatever it takes” approach.”“(The mentality) should provide you a lot of comfort,” Banner said. “We are not people who are accepting things being OK or just kind of good. Hopefully you take comfort in the fact we’re going to demand excellence.”

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